One person was reportedly briefly trapped in the smoking wreckage of a car on southbound I680 in Pleasant Hill Tuesday.
The crash was reported at 3:43 p.m. and captured by a local News24/680 Flasher, Ryan Panlilio, who kindly sent in a photo.
Witnesses reported seeing the car spin out and make contact with the right side barrier of the freeway before coming to rest – briefly catching fire. Crews were on hand to clean up the debris and tend to at least one person who reported injuries suffered in the collision.
“…..made ‘contact’ with the right side of the barrier”…. I guess we don’t use the word “crash” anymore. That vehicle definitely crashed!
“Smoky Crash” is in the title… 🙂
There’s that, thanks to George! In our biz we are often left to seek out and use other words lest some – like “crash” in this instance – become overused and unduly repetitive. Occupational hazard. We’ll also say that we have a habit of using archaic language some might not recognize or understand because 1. we love language and seek a rhythm to our words, and 2. because we like effective writing and find that earlier attempts get the job done though, admittedly, it can be confusing to those unused to it.
Thank you. You just refreshed me on what my high school English teacher taught us 50 years ago.
BTW…”made contact with” is the term the police most often use now too. So I guess I better start using it too.
It could actually be very helpful if I ever crash the car i.e. ” oh honey, I made contact”
It could also be very helpful if you’re cheating on your spouse. Just tell he/she that you “made contact” with someone and they’ll never know the difference. Unless they read News24/680…
There are other words and phrases for that sort of thing, eg: dalliance, interlude, tête-à-tête… we know a million of ’em, ’cause we’re old romantics at heart.